General Archives

This page documents the history and development of this magazine web site and contains a number of old pages, stored here for the record.

1st June 2011

artsIn Magazine began life when the domain name was registered on 22nd February 2005, together with artsInleicestershire.com.

The site was constructed to be a sister site to traveltoleicester.co.uk, which had been created by the designers, B2B Web Consultants. The first edition of the site looked like the original travel to leicester site, its layout being templated from it.

Hence, the artsInleicestershire.co.uk site was a spin off from the Travel to Leicester site, which we operated at that time.

The only remaining copy of what the site looked like can be seen from the PDF file made of the front page, which is dated 30th May 2007. This shows the three column layout and the Blue and Yellow Navigation boxes that matched those on the original travel web site.

Notice the masthead block was very different, being made form a variety of photo images that reflected the arts appearing in it at that time. The font now used for the name had not then been adopted.

At that time the site was branded to Pink Angel Promotions, an entertainment agency that had been created, with its own web site (now defunct.) The content and links of this home page indicates that rock music was a primary content of the site. The links also indicate that things like theatre, visual arts and other genres of music were also included.

At the time, B2B Web Consultants (which hosted and developed the artsIn site) was trading under the branding of Pink Angel Promotions in order to differentiate its arts-related work from that of its general commercial work.

By December 2006, the site's banner simply read 'Arts in Leicestershire' and was branded to Pink Angel Promotions. It still bore the travel to Leicester styling and layout.

In May 2007, an extensive listing of gigs was well under way. This page shows some of the promoters that were active at the time, such as 101 Promotions which was run by Paul Matts who previously managed the Attik live music venue.

The list also shows a date for the OBS (Original Bands Showcase). You can see entries for the 'Indie Rock Night', run at the Sun Bar in Churchgate by Arts in Leicestershire or Pink Angel Promotions, a weekly show where live bands played.

The list shows some of the bands that were active at the time; some of these no longer exist.

There was also a separate page (called the events list) for other types of shows. This splitting of rock gigs and general shows into separate lists is still a feature of the current magazine.

The page listing venues in Leicester is also of interest. Some of those that are listed here have now closed down (e.g. The Charlotte, The Half Time Orange) and some have changed their name (e.g. The current Firebug was then called the Firefly and Original Four is now called SuperFly) and The Alchemist is now called Squares Bar, although it no longer puts on live music.

In May 2007 the site had the original layout taht followed the template of its Travel to Leicester sister site. The about Us page referred to it as a 'website' rather than as a 'magazine or webzine'.

The site was later called 'Arts in Leicestershire Webzine' and that then became 'magazine' as the editors became confident that the content justified that description.

By August 2008, the page banner included the words 'Online Magazine'.

2009: The growth of the magazine format

The home page (on16/8/2009) bore the red top logo using the Monotype Corsiva font which we see today.

The horizontal nvaigation bar had been introduced with the links to the major sections.

The about us page stated (on 14th August 2009): 'When we started our gigs list , we planned to cover all gigs at all venues. Several months later, we find we are unable to do this because the task is far too overwhelming. We spend several hours per week updating the gigs list and it changes pretty much on a daily basis. The gigs list alone is equivalent to over 28 pages of A4.'

Also in August 2009, the vacancies page was offering a variety of positions for unpaid volunteers.

The main sections were: comedy, literature, music, theatre and visual arts.

2010: Growth and development

With artsIn now established as an on-line magazine, a new section about dance was introduced. By now, we also had accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and Fatsoma as well as a seprate blog site. Some of these accounts had been created long before the current magazine got going, as facilities created by the music agency Get Your Band On. Our account on Youtube, for example, is still called 'UK Bands Promoter'. Our MySpace address is still /getyourbandon.

In order to foster the growth of Arts in Leicestershire, the decision was taken to close down other web sites we operated and to put all our resources into making it more successful. Get Your Band On was terminated, along with a variety of other web sites that were distracting attention away from the magazine but which were not delivering any useful results.

2011: The company takes over the magazine

artsIn Productions Limited was launched on 1st October 2011. This new social enterprise took over the publiction of the magazine.

Being a social enterprise, the company was better able to recruit a team of volunteers to write for the magazine.

Other pages

Looking back - pages you might have missed.

Acoustics Competition pages from 2008.

Pages from this magazine are comprehensively archived but these are not stored online.